THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE
The curtain went up on the first act of the play. It was not perhaps
so interesting from the outset as the audience would have wished, and
the fashionable portion thereof showed its impatience by sundry
coughings and whisperings, which had to be peremptorily checked now
and again by a loud:
"Silence, there!" and a threat to clear the court.
The medical officer was giving his testimony at great length as to the
cause of death. Technical terms were used in plenty, and puzzled the
elegant ladies who had come here to be amused. The jury listened
attentively, and the coroner--himself a medical man--asked several
very pertinent questions:
"The thrust," he asked of Doctor Blair, who was medical officer of the
district, "through the neck was effected by means of a long narrow
instrument, with two sharp edges, a dagger in fact?"
"A dagger or a stiletto or a skewer," replied the doctor. "Any sharp,
two-edged instrument would cause a wound like the one in the neck of
the deceased."
"Was death instantaneous?"
"Almost so."
He explained at some length the intricacies of the human throat at
the points where the murderer's weapon had entered the neck of his
victim. Louisa listened attentively. Every moment she expected to see
the coroner's hand wandering to the piece of green baize in front of
him, and then drawing it away disclosing a snake-wood stick with
silver ferrule stained, and showing the rise of the dagger, sheathed
within the body of the stick. Every moment she expected to hear the
query:
"Is this the instrument which dealt the blow?"
But this apparently was not to be just yet. The opaque veil of green
baize was not to be lifted; that certain long Something was not to be
revealed, the Something that would condemn Luke irrevocably,
absolutely, to disgrace and to death.
Only one of the members of the jury--Louisa understood that he was the
foreman--asked a simple question:
"Would," he said, "the witness explain whether in his opinion the--the
unknown murderer--the--I mean----"
He floundered a little in the phrase, having realized that in his
official capacity he must keep an open mind--and in that open mind of
an English juryman there could for the present dwell no certainty that
a murderer--an unknown murderer--did exist.
They were all here--he and the others and the coroner--in order to
find out if there had been a murder committed or not.
The coroner, one elbow on the table, one large hand holding firmly the
somewhat fleshy chin, looked at the juryman somewhat contemptuously.
"You mean?" he queried with an obvious effort at patience.
"I mean," resumed the man more firmly, "in this present instance,
would a certain medical or anatomical knowledge be necessary in order
to strike--er--or to thrust--so precisely--just on the right spot to
cause immediate death?"
With amiable condescension the coroner put the query to the witness in
more concise words.
"No, no," replied the doctor quickly, now that he had understood the
question, "the thrust argues no special anatomical knowledge. Most
laymen would know that if you pierce the throat from ear to ear
suffocation is bound to ensue. It was easily enough done."
"When the deceased's head was turned away?" asked the coroner.
"Why, yes--to look out on the fog, perhaps; or at a passer-by. It
would be fairly easy if the would-be murderer was quick and determined
and the victim unsuspecting."
And Doctor Blair, with long tapering fingers, pointed toward his own
throat, giving illustration of how easily the deed might be done.
"Given the requisite weapon of course."
After a few more courteous questions of a technical kind, the first
witness was dismissed--only momentarily, for he would be required
again--when the green baize would be lifted from the hidden Something
which lay there ready to hand, and the medical man be asked to
pronounce finally whether indeed the dagger stick was the requisite
weapon for the deed which had been so easy of accomplishment.
The chauffeur who had driven the taxicab was the next witness called.
A thick-set man, in dark blue Melton coat and peaked cap, he came
forward with that swinging gait which betrayed the ex-coachman.
He gave his evidence well and to the point. He had been hailed on the
night in question by two gentlemen in evening dress. It was in
Shaftesbury Avenue, just opposite the Lyric Theatre, and a little
while after he had heard St. Martin's Church clock strike nine
o'clock. "The fog was so dense," he added, "you could not see your
hand before your eyes."
He had just put down at the Apollo and had crossed over to the left,
going down toward Piccadilly, when the two swells hailed him from the
curb. He couldn't rightly see them, because of the fog, but he noticed
that both wore high hats and the collars of their overcoats ware
turned up to their ears. He hardly saw their faces, but he noticed
that one of them carried a walking stick.
"Or it might 'ave been a umbrella," he added after a moment's
hesitation, "I couldn't rightly say."
"You must have seen the faces of your fares," argued the coroner, "if
you saw that one of them carried a walking stick--or an umbrella. You
must have seen something of their faces," he reiterated more
emphatically.
"I didn't," retorted the man gruffly. "Was you out in that there fog,
sir? If you was, you'd know 'ow you couldn't see your 'and before your
eyes. I saw the point of the stick--or the umbrella, I couldn't
rightly say which--only because one of them gents waved it at me when
'e was 'ailing me--that's 'ow I seed the point."
The coroner allowed the question of identification to drop: clearly
nothing would be got out of the man. The gentlemen, he declared,
entered the cab, and then one of them gave directions to him, putting
his head out of the right hand window.
"I didn't turn to look at 'im," he said bluntly. "I could 'ear 'is
voice plain enough--so why should I take a look at 'im? 'Ow did I know
there was a goin' to be murder done in my cab, and me wanted to say
what the murderer looked like?"
He looked round the room defiantly, as if expecting applause for this
display of sound common-sense, opposed to the coroner's tiresome
officialism.
"And what directions," asked the latter, "did the gentleman give you?"
"To go along Piccadilly," replied the witness, "till 'e told me to
stop."
"And when did he tell you to stop?"
"By the railings of Green Park, just by 'Yde Park Corner. One of 'em
puts 'is 'ead out of the window and calls to me to pull up."
"Which you did?"
"Which I did, and one of 'em gets out and standin' on the curb 'e
leans back to the interior of the cab and says: S'long--see you
to-morrow,' and then 'e says to me: 'No. 1 Cromwell Road,' and
disappears in the fog."
"Surely you saw him then?"
"No. The fog was like pea soup there, though it looked clearer on
Knightsbridge away. And 'e got out left side of course. I was up on my
box right 'and side--a long way from 'im. I could see a man standin'
there, but not 'is face. 'Is 'at was pulled down right over 'is eyes,
and 'is coat collar up to 'is ears."
"Had he his stick--or umbrella--with him then?"
"Yes. With 'is 'ands in 'is pockets, and the tip pointing upward, like
a soldier's bayonet."
"You saw that and not his face?" once more insisted the coroner,
making a final effort to draw some more definite statement out of the
man. It would help justice so much if only this witness were less
obstinate! No one would believe that he really saw nothing of the face
of the man who had twice spoken to him. He may not have seen it
clearly, not the upper part of the face perhaps, but surely he saw the
mouth that had actually framed the words!
But the chauffeur was obstinate. He was not going to swear away the
life of a man whom he had not rightly seen, only through a fog as
thick as pea soup: this was the fortress behind which after awhile he
entrenched himself.
In vain did the coroner, pleased at having gained this slight
advantage, try to draw him further, explaining to him with the quiet
patience of a man moved by official ambition that, far from
jeopardizing the life of any man, he might be saving that of an
innocent one, falsely accused through circumstantial evidence. In vain
did he press and argue, the man was obstinate. After a very long while
only, and when the coroner had almost given up arguing and
cross-examining, he admitted that he did think that the gentleman who
directed him to No. 1 Cromwell Road had a moustache.
"But, mind," he added hurriedly, "I won't swear to it, for I didn't
rightly see--the fog was that dense in the park. And 'e wasn't the
same as the one 'oo told me to go along Piccadilly until 'e stopped
me. The dead man done that."
"How do you know," came as a quick retort from the coroner, "since you
declare you could not see the faces?"
"The first gent 'oo spoke to me," replied the chauffeur somewhat
sullenly now, "'ad no 'air on 'is face; the second one I think
'ad--but I can't rightly say. I wouldn't swear to neither. And I won't
swear," he reiterated with gruff emphasis.
A sigh went round the room, a tremor of excitement, the palpitation of
many hearts, and in-drawing of many breaths. No one spoke. No one
framed the thought that was uppermost in the mind of every one of the
interested spectators of this strange and un-understandable drama. The
dead man who lay in the mortuary chamber was clean-shaved, but Luke de
Mountford wore a moustache.
Lady Ducies' feathers nodded in the direction of the literary countess
who went by the name of Maria Annunziata and the latter made hasty
notes in her diminutive book.
But Louisa leaned slightly forward so as to catch fuller sight of
Luke, and she encountered his eyes fixed steadily upon her.
After that the driver of the cab concluded his evidence more rapidly.
There was little more there than what every one had already learned
from the newspapers. The second pulling up in Cromwell Road this time:
the silent fare, the descent from the box, the discovery of the
huddled figure in the far corner of the cab, the call for the police.
People listened with less attention; thoughts were busy with the
contemplation of a picture: two men, one clean-shaved--the dead man of
course--and the other wearing a moustache. The first link in the chain
of evidence against the assassin had been forged and was ready to be
rivetted to the next.
The crowd in the body of the court could only obtain a view of the
top of Luke de Mountford's head. It was smooth and fair, of that
English fairness of tint which is golden when the light catches it.
And the group of elegantly dressed women who came here to-day in order
to experience an altogether novel sensation shuddered with delightful
excitement as they thought of Black Maria, and handcuffs, and crowds
of police officers in blue. A jumble of impressions ran riot in
frivolous and irresponsible minds, foremost amongst which was one that
the public was not longer allowed to witness a final scene on the
gallows.